“The Transformational Role of Philosophy in Project Management”

Call for Papers – Special Collection: “The Transformational Role of Philosophy in Project Management”

Journal: International Journal of Project Management
Publisher: Elsevier
Impact Factor: 7.5 | CiteScore: 14.2
Submission deadline: 30 September 2026

Overview

This special collection calls project scholars to deeply engage philosophy as a core, not peripheral, resource for rethinking the telos, ethics, and politics of projects and their management. It aims to move beyond instrumentalist and technical approaches and instead foreground foundational questions about purpose, meaning, values, and human flourishing in project work.

By drawing on diverse philosophical traditions—Western, Eastern, Indigenous, and others—the collection invites contributions that critically examine, reframe, and transform project‑management theory, practice, and the identity of the project manager.

Core Themes

1. Philosophy and the “why” of projects

• What social purpose, intrinsic good, or moral justification does project management have, comparable to medicine, law, education, or architecture?

• How might finality (telos) of projects differ from purely economic or efficiency‑driven logics?

2. Ideals, values, and axiology

• Which ideals and values (e.g., justice, care, sustainability, dignity, solidarity) underlie different project communities and professional identities.

• How can axiology (value theory) reshape project‑management research agendas and evaluation criteria.

3. Philosophical traditions and project management

• Applications of existentialism, pragmatism, phenomenology, Marxism, post‑structuralism, Eastern or Indigenous philosophies to projects and their management.

• What different traditions reveal about uncertainty, disorder, multiplicity of interests, and temporal evaluation in projects.

4. Project manager as moral and political agent

• Moral agency of project managers under institutional, economic, environmental, and political constraints.

• How philosophy can help address the “dark side of projects” (e.g., exploitation, exclusion, destructive uses of projects).

5. Projects as forms of work and social organisation

• Philosophical reflection on the legitimacy of projects as modes of organising work in contemporary society.

• Impact of projects on workers’ lives, managers’ subjectivity, and wider societal trajectories.

6. Epistemology and knowledge production

• How dominant epistemic paradigms in project research include (or exclude) ideals and social purpose.

• Re‑theorising “success” and “performance” in projects beyond conventional metrics to include human and societal well‑being.

7. Philosophy of the project profession

• What kind of moral, political, and philosophical commitments a mature “philosophy of the project profession” might entail.

• How philosophical reflection can foster responsible, self‑reflexive, and socially conscious scholarship and practice in projects.

Suggested Research Questions

Submissions may address (but are not limited to):

• What can different philosophical traditions say about the nature of the project and its management?

• Does project management have a meaningful social purpose, or is it merely instrumental?

• What are, or can be, the aims, ends, ideals, and meaning of projects and their actors?

• How do assumptions about human nature (e.g., Hobbesian, Rousseauian, Aristotelian) shape project theory and practice?

• How can philosophy inform the “project‑as‑practice” perspective and the analysis of disorder and indeterminacy?

• What is the moral agency of the project manager under institutional constraints, and how can projects be “good” or “bad”?

• Why should the project manager care more about the client’s use of the project than a retailer cares about how a product is used?

• What are the political and ethical implications of projects as forms of work organisation?

• How does time and evaluation affect the perceived legitimacy and success of projects in society?

• What is, or can be, the philosophy of the project profession and its guiding principles?

Submission Process and Timeline

• Extended abstracts (optional but encouraged):

  • 800–1000 words, outlining research gap, theorising purpose, methodological approach, and potential contributions.

  • Submit by 2 March 2026 to Efrosyni Konstantinou at:
    efrosyni.konstantinou@ucl.ac.uk

• Feedback on abstracts: by 30 March 2026.

• Virtual workshop: for authors of accepted abstracts on 3 April 2026, 3 p.m. GMT.

• Full‑paper submissions: must be made via the International Journal of Project Management Editorial Manager:
  https://www.editorialmanager.com/jpma/Default.aspx

  • Select article type: “SI: Transformational Role of Philosophy”.

  • Submission window: 1 June – 30 September 2026.

• All papers undergo the journal’s standard double‑blind review.

• Production and publication proceed as papers are accepted; the collection is expected to be finalised by November 2027.

Authors may submit conceptual, empirical, or mixed‑methods work that demonstrates philosophical depth and theoretical innovation.

Guest Editors

• Efrosyni Konstantinou, University College London, UK

• David Carl Wilson, Webster University, USA & Webster Vienna Private University, Austria

• Henk den Uijl, University of Humanistic Studies, The Netherlands

• Ralf Müller, BI Norwegian Business School, Norway

Why This Special Collection Matters

• Much of project‑management scholarship is technically sophisticated but philosophically thin, leaving foundational questions about purpose, ethics, and politics implicit.

• This collection invites authors to re‑ imagine the discipline “from the inside”—through ideals, first principles, and political‑ethical reflection—so that project management can become more authentic, responsible, and socially transformative.

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